This research examined the community of inquiry as a framework for collaborative, online community engagement with the goal of supporting collaborative participation of community members inhibited from attending face-to-face engagement opportunities. The community of inquiry framework was used to design a two-week, online, asynchronous community engagement experience for ten participants divided into two groups. Case study qualitative methods were used to explore the records of discussion to determine how the community of inquiry supported online community engagement as well as identify impediments to its development. The framework supported community engagement; however, participants did not complete the inquiry cycle. Potential inhibitors to the framework’s development included participant motivation, lack of engagement between participants, response timing in asynchronous discussion, and the overall time available to complete the study. In response to these results, promising practices and a modified community of inquiry model were proposed for application in a community engagement setting.
